


Lost Like a Memory

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 03:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: Shiro is broken, the weight of the sand filling his lungs as Keith is finding his wings. The black lion flies and Shiro feels Keith learning to trust the lion, to trust himself. Shiro had spent years hoping that when he died Keith would be alright without him, and the reality is bittersweet. Shiro is gone and Keith keeps on living, keeps flying, keeps fighting.Keith was born to live among the stars and Shiro, well Shiro was meant to die among them.





	Lost Like a Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bit of an emotional freakout after season 7 dropped and deleted this (and the lovely comments!). So if you thought you'd seen this before you are not wrong. If you're here reading this for the first time, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thank you restlessandordinary for the beta! <3

There are some things he can’t forget no matter how hard he tries.

The smell of burning flesh as the Galra had attached his new arm. They’d sedated him enough that he couldn’t move, but not enough that he couldn’t feel. Shiro never knew what they used to do it. They spoke in quiet whispers in a language Shiro couldn’t understand. They spoke in words and all Shiro understood was pain.

The screams of agony as he’d delivered the blow—watching his opponent crumble to the floor as they took their last breath—and knowing that as long as he ensured they didn’t live that he could. It never mattered whether they were a criminal, what their species was, or if they would’ve done the exact same thing to Shiro. Every night he closed his eyes and felt the weight of their last breath constrict his airways as he struggled to breathe and remembered that he was the one who had killed them. Champion, he thought bitterly, as if he could taste their blood on his tongue. His salvation and damnation all in one word.

The way the stars looked from Earth—from home. Shiro had spent his life looking up at them, wanting to be amongst them. For as long as he could remember he’d know his life was a ticking time bomb. Like a countdown in his very muscles except when it reached zero instead of sending him to space, it’d be leaving him earthbound forever as his skin and bones turn to ash and his body became one with the earth. Shiro knew it was inevitable, knew it as certainly as he knew the position of every constellation in the sky. And just once, for one brief moment, Shiro wanted to be among the stars. Shiro felt trapped inside a sand timer, waiting for his time to run out, waiting to be buried—but all he wanted was to feel infinite, even just for a moment in time.

Then there are things he doesn’t want to forget, no matter how much the universe conspires to take things from him. They might have taken a part of his body, a part of his heart, but these they cannot take from him.

The way the sunrise looked across the horizon—the cold desert air seeping into his bones and the promise of a new day at his fingertips. He could recall the way his helmet felt held under one arm as he’d leaned on the hoverbike. The way Keith’s eyes had looked the first time he’d taken him out to the middle of the desert to watch the sun come up across the desert landscape the night before the Kerberos mission. _“The world is yours. Don’t be afraid to fight for what you want,_ ” he’d whispered, never realizing the thing Keith might end up fighting for was him.

The solid, self-assured timber in Keith’s voice when he’d said, _“As many times as it takes.”_  Shiro hadn’t thought it would take so many, but he finds himself grateful more than ever that Keith never gives up on the things he loves even if it’s hard to admit that he is one of those things. The astral plane had been so cold, so lonely, but the memory of Keith’s voice felt like a tether keeping him from drifting away into the nothingness everyone else already thought he was. It was almost ironic, Shiro thought, to be among the stars now but to feel less infinite than ever.

Shiro is broken, the weight of the sand filling his lungs as Keith is finding his wings. The black lion flies and Shiro feels Keith learning to trust the lion, to trust himself. Shiro had spent years hoping that when he died Keith would be alright without him, and the reality is bittersweet. Shiro is gone and Keith keeps on living, keeps flying, keeps fighting.

Keith was born to live among the stars and Shiro, well Shiro was meant to die among them.

But then Keith is there beside him, Keith is pulling him back from the darkness just like he always has. Shiro’s eyes open in a body that was never meant to be his, and everything feels like too much.  _Too bright, too real, too much pain_. But Keith is there, his physical presence as comforting as the emotional one—stronger now than the memories Shiro had held onto for months, the ones he’d locked deep inside his heart like they were the most precious thing in the universe.

“You found me,” he whispers as his head drops down onto Keith’s chest, the steady _thump thump_ of Keith’s heartbeat the only thing keeping Shiro from drifting away again.

It’s only then that Shiro knows the truth. It’s not the memories of Keith he wants but the _moments_.

There is so much he wants to say but his mouth feels like its made of sandpaper, his tongue heavy and his mind confused. He uses the little strength he has to reach out, his fingertips barely connecting with Keith’s but Keith gets the message loud and clear and squeezes them back. It’s the softest of touches but Shiro feels it in his entire body—feels it in his heart.  
  
I love you too, Shiro thinks, palm upturned as he holds onto Keith’s hand. He cannot say the words, but the way Keith looks down at him he thinks perhaps he doesn’t need to. Keith knows. Keith has always known.


End file.
